Bernese Mountain Dog puppy turns one

Little Miss Jackie the Bernese Mountain Dog turned one year old this week. She weighs in at over 90 pounds, quite a change for the "runt" of her litter! In honor of her birthday, I made a dog birthday cake. After searching for recipes, I found that there are very few good ones out there, so offer up my own version of a whole wheat, carrot, banana, peanut butter cake.

Dog Birthday Cake

This is completely edible for humans, too!

Jackie wants some cake! "When do I get some?"

Queen for a Day

Whole Wheat Doggie Cake

1 C whole wheat flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 C natural ( no sugar) peanut butter
1 mashed banana
2 shredded carrots
1/4 C. olive oil
1 egg
2 Tbsp. honey
1/4-1/2 tsp. cinnamon

This is a very simple cake. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Oil small (6 in x 3 in) springform cake pan. Mix dry ingredients. Mix wet ingredients and add to dry ingredients. Spread batter in the oiled pan. Bake 40 minutes or till cake springs back when touched. Cool on rack.

Frosting

2 oz. cream cheese
1/4 C. peanut butter
2 Tbsp. yogurt
1 Tbsp. honey

Cream the peanut butter and cream cheese, add yogurt and honey and frost as you would any cake. Decorate with doggie treats, carrot slivers, banana slices or other special goodies your dog loves.

The cake is actually quite good. For dogs, do not add nuts, raisins or other indigestible or dangerous ingredients! Jackie had no problem digesting the cake.

Here she is gulping her first bite!

Roasted quince, pear and apple tart

For my dear friends and owners of a mature quince tree, I'm including here a recipe for a roasted quince, pear and apple tart. Karen and Bob have shared their Carneros quince with us for several years. Our young quince tree set many fruit this year, but I had to pinch most of them off so that they would not break the spindly branches. In a few years it will be as sturdy as the persimmon tree we planted by the dining room windows.

I found a recipe on Epicurious for a roasted pear, apple and quince crostada. Unfortunately, each piece has 923 calories, and the recipe uses three sticks of butter and over one and one-half cups of sugar. I changed the shell and the filling and made them gluten free.

Here's the adapted recipe.

 

Roasted quince, pear and apple tart

Roasted fruit
2 quince, washed, cored
2 firm pears, washed and cored
2 firm apples, washed and cored
1/2 cup sugar
3 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh ginger
1 cinnamon stick, broken
4-6 whole cloves
2 Tbsp. Lucero Lemon White Balsamic Vinegar
dash salt

Tart shell
1 1/2 cups packed almond meal flour
4 Tbsp. butter, melted, cooled
3 Tbsp. sugar (or ginger flavored sugar)
2 Tbsp. ice water

Almond filling
1 cup almond paste
1/4 cup egg whites (about 2 large eggs)
dash freshly ground cinnamon

Sugar topping
1 1/2 Tbsp. Turbinado sugar
1/4 tsp. sea salt

Method
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Wash, quarter and core quince, apples and pears, then cut in  one inch chunks. Toss with lemon juice, sugar, ginger, cinnamon stick, cloves and balsamic vinegar in a bowl. Transfer to large shallow baking pan, and roast, stirring once or twice, until fruit is soft and caramelized - about 1 to 1/14 hours. Remove from oven, cool on rack (about 30-45 minutes), discard cinnamon and cloves.

Meanwhile, make tart shell. Mix almond meal, sugar, butter, and ice water with fork till mixture clings together. Press into 8 inch tart pan and up sides.

In food processor, mix almond paste, egg whites and cinnamon till light and fluffy.

For sugar topping, mix Turbinado sugar and sea salt in small bowl.

Assemble tart by spreading the almond filling in the tart shell, arranging the cooled fruit over the filling, and sprinkling the sugar topping over the fruit filling.

Bake on baking sheet till filling is slightly puffed and fruit filling begins to brown. This should be about one hour. Cool to warm, remove side of tart pan, and place on serving plate.

The very best accompaniment is Tahitian Vanilla ice cream from the recipe of Goitsemedeme Booq, cook for Mrs. Constantine Nurt at her estate in Napa, Gottalottaguapo.

Butter Bombs

John demonstrates the techniques for making "Butter Bombs" also known as "Lenora's Yeast Rolls" (cloverleaf style) as published in Bernard Clayton's New Complete Book of Breads, 1987.

After the dough has risen, the shaping of the rolls:

More on the shaping of the rolls:

Next, the ceremonial enrobing with butter:

And the final anointment with yet more butter:

This is why Thanksgiving dinner can be a mine field of calories. 

Julia Child would have been proud.

Persimmons on fire

I read an interesting article on how to write a blog post. The advice was to delete the first and last paragraphs, so this is a very short first paragraph. No deletion required.

Christmas dinner came together without a hitch, and in a rather effortless fashion. Brother Joe and his wife Nancy sent us a "honey baked ham". We tried champagne and sherry with the ham, but with the leftovers on Boxing Day tried this Simply Recipes Honey Mulled Wine which is also recommended.

After our late afternoon Christmas Day dinner, we had John's famous flaming persimmon pudding. His mother used to serve flaming puddings, with decorations of holly and berries. Here is a video of the pudding:

Courtesy of John, here is the persimmon pudding recipe - his adaptation from the "California Heritage Cookbook" by the Pasadena Junior League.

Persimmon Pudding
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon salad oil
1 egg, well beaten
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. allspice
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 cup milk
1 cup Hachiya persimmons, sieved
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped toasted pecans
1/2 cup chopped dates
1/4 cup chopped candied ginger, no smaller than 1/8" chunks

In a mixing bowl, beat one cup sugar and the oil into the well-beaten egg. In a separate bowl sift together the flour, spices, salt, baking powder and soda. Add this alternately with the milk to the creamed mixture. Mix in the persimmon, vanilla, nuts, and dates. Generously butter and sugar a pudding mold with a hollow center; the sugar coating will slightly caramelize when lit on fire providing a light shell crunch on the exterior.

Bake in the covered mold set in a pan of hot water in a preheated 350 degree oven for 45 minutes, or until done. The pudding may be steamed in a water bath on top of the stove for 4 hours, or until done. Unmold onto a serving plate. Use waxed paper between the lid and body of the mold if boiling.

To flame the pudding, warm 1/4 cup brandy, pour over pudding and light. Alternatively, pour 1/4 cup 151 rum over the cake and light (do not warm - read warnings on the label!)

Pudding may be served with a hot lemon sauce, but we prefer it plain.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Thanks, here's some pie

One of the projects that the Rotary Club of Napa supports is the Pathway Home. Our club hosts the annual "Cycle for Sight & Rotary Ride for Veterans". Members of our club are very involved in activities with Pathway Home veterans, including special outings, regular bowling nights, volunteering at the Veterans Home, distributing a home made quilt to each veteran, and of course raising money for this privately funded effort. Veterans in the program may have traumatic brain injuries, post traumatic stress disorder, physical injuries, and sometimes disfiguring injuries. Please click on the links to learn more about the program, and plan on riding or volunteering at the next Rotary Ride on Saturday, April 21, 2012.

One of the little things we do is make homemade pies for the Pathway Home veterans for Thanksgiving. Yesterday the Rotary pie delivering crew requested the recipe for the pie I brought - so here it is. I hope the pie made the trip safely all the way from Napa to Yountville. There were some hungry looking fellows driving the truck.

I used the recipe published by David Lebovitz on his blog. I generally followed the recipe, as David recommends that practice when first making a recipe. This kind of pie - containing pecans, chocolate and bourbon - is one that I have known for years as a "Kentucky Derby Pie". There is a similar trademarked name. A lovely recipe for a similar pie can be found in "The South, the Beautiful Cookbook" - which uses ground pecans in the crust as well as unsweetened chocolate and dark corn syrup in the filling. Since I have always made a pie crust with a pastry blender, I thought I would try this method for making the crust. David also recommends NOT pre-baking the crust so that the filling and crust fuse together. We have not cut the second pie I made for our Thanksgiving, so I will report on the results in the comments section.
I did not have quite enough light corn syrup, so added a bit of dark corn syrup. The dark chocolate chips I used were 60% chocolate by Ghiradelli. These are large chips.

Chocolate Pecan Pie by David Lebovitz

The crust:
1 1/4 cups (175g) flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
4 ounces (115g) unsalted butter, chilled, and cut into 1-inch (3cm) cubes
4 tablespoons (60ml) ice water

The chocolate-pecan filling:
3 large eggs
3/4 cup (150g) packed dark brown sugar
2/3 cup (200g) light corn syrup, rice syrup or golden syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons (30g) melted butter, salted or unsalted
2 tablespoons bourbon
1 2/3 cups (190g) toasted pecans, very coarsely chopped
3/4 cup (120g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate chips

1. To make the crust, mix together the flour, salt, and sugar in a bowl or in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment. (Or use a food processor.)
2. Add the cubed butter and mix until the butter pieces are broken up and about the size of small peas.
3. Add the ice water and mix just until the dough comes together. Form the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic, and chill for at least 30 minutes.
4. Roll the dough on a lightly floured surface into a 12-inch (30cm) round. Transfer the dough into a 9-inch ( cm) pie plate letting the dough ease into the pan, rather than pressing it in. Tuck the overhanging dough underneath the area above the rim of the pie plate, to create a double width of dough, then crimp the edges and refrigerate until ready to fill.
5. Preheat the oven to 375ºF (190ºC) and position the oven rack to the center of the oven.
6. In a large bowl, which together the eggs, brown sugar, syrup, vanilla, salt, melted butter, and bourbon.
7. Stir in the pecans and the chocolate chips then scrape the filling into the pie shell and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the filling puffs up slightly but still feels slightly jiggly and moist in the center.
Let pie cool completely before slicing.

Serving: Vanilla ice cream or whipped cream is a good accompaniment to pecan pie.
Storage: Dough can be made ahead and refrigerated for up to three days, or frozen for up to two months.
The pie is best eaten the same day although will keep for up to three days, at room temperature.

To go with the pie, my dear husband John made some of his special vanilla ice cream. We may have enough left for our Thanksgiving dessert later today!

Nocino part 2

A year ago I made some Nocino, or Liqueuer de noix - green walnut liqueur.   The traditional time to harvest the green walnuts is next week on June 24.  The previous blog post explains the method.  Making Nocino requires patience, just like making wine. 

We tasted the Nocino on Saturday.  It has been resting in the dark in the cool basement.  I actually forgot where I had stored it and had to do a search in the special rare foodstuffs (liquors) area of the cellar. 

At the time I bottled it, the Nocino had a bitter, bitter taste.  So bitter, it seemed like it had crawled out of a bile duct.  I questioned whether the bitter flavor would ever go away.  Now the Nocino has a complex spicy, nutty, tannic flavor and still has a somewhat bitter edge.  It needs a little more rest, but has become very promising.  Visualize this deep amber liquid poured over fresh vanilla ice cream.  Surely it will be worth the wait.

Limoncello

Meyer Limoncello is one of the ways we use up some of the hundreds of lemons produced each year on our old Meyer lemon tree.  I had the tree moved about 15 years ago to make way for the deck and re-built dining room.  While the backhoe was here doing the footing excavation, I had the backhoe operator scoop out the already root-pruned tree and placed in a large new hole near the garage.  The tree may be over 40 years old and is extremely vigorous. 

This recipe has evolved over the three or four times I have made it.  The original recipe I used had zest of 20 lemons. This was not enough.  I next tried 24 lemons, and had a better batch.  This last time I used 30 lemons and have a really great color and lemon flavor.  It may be that you can use as much lemon zest as you can cover with the vodka.

Meyer Limoncello
1.5 Liter bottle 100 proof good quality vodka
30 (or more) lemons, zest only, no white pith
Combine vodka and lemon zest in a large glass jar with a tight fitting lid. I use a glass jar with a metal bail and rubber gasket. Place in a dark cupboard, take out and stir or shake every day for at least 40 days.
____________________________________
simple syrup:
4 cups sugar
5 cups water
Simmer 5-7 minutes, cool.  Add to the liquor mix.  Let rest another 40 days+/- in the same cabinet.  Filter through cheesecloth into bottles with metal bails with stoppers or with tight fitting lids. Store in the freezer.


We still have many, many lemons, so stop by to pick some up for limoncello, preserved lemons or lemon marmalade. 

after dinner music

Cover of Ludwig van Beethoven











It appears that scribefire, a blog editing tool, is not supporting youtube video clips. Back to the onboard editor for this post.

Yesterday was an eight hands/two piano session which turned into a marathon of sorts, beginning at noon and lasting till ten in the evening. There were breaks early for lunch, for afternoon refreshment, then for dinner - but the pianists continued after dinner.


Music for the afternoon included Haydn, Mozart, Liszt, Joplin, Beethoven (two complete symphonies, including all repeats), and Wagner. In honor of my recent concert at the Napa Valley College where we had a chorus of over 100 singers plus orchestra performing the final movement of Beethoven's 9th symphony, John and friends played the entire symphony.  Launching into the chorus section prompted a choral outburst from at least two pianists - "Freude!"



For dinner we had southern California style tacos courtesy of John, Rancho Gordo beans, a fresh vegetable platter, guacamole, and olive oil citrus cake described about a year ago. After dinner, another light piece by Wagner:

Where Men Win Glory

My latest book selection for the Bolgia Book Club was Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer. 

Our book club is a little different than most.  It has been around for eight years.  It is equal parts men and women.  The books are selected by the host.  Our order of rotation and basic rules are contained in a pickle.  The pickle is passed when the next book is revealed at the end of the meeting.  There is always food and wine (we live in Napa, after all.)

I heard about a new local book club called the "Commando Book Club" - which does not allow food or beverages.  Our group would not long survive with such austerity.



The last book we read was The Lost Books of the Odyssey by Zachary Mason.   I thought the Pat Tillman story might be a fitting follow up to a rather fey attempt to re-write the story of Odysseus.  There was almost universal acclaim for this book, and it is a hard crowd to please.  Don't they look hard to please, critical and picky?  In this photo they are sipping a small glass of homemade limoncello.  Do I need to provide the recipe?  The big jar on the table is the new batch - about 35 days into the first stage prior to addition of the simple syrup.  The rose is our latest Leap of Faith bottling - 2010 Merlot Rose.

We had a wonderful conversation about war, kleos, what is a justified war, heroism, epic poetry, and of course the life of a remarkable man told by one of our great story tellers.

We also had spring lamb stew:



...and a luscious savory mushroom (and chanterelle) bread pudding.



We ended with two kinds of homemade cookies and lemon milk sherbet made two ways, one with Meyer lemons, and one with Felicia's sour lemons.  After the side by side tasting, sour lemons are better for lemon sherbet.  Meyer lemons are too sweet and lack the tang of the Eureka lemons.

Where in Napa is...

This brightly painted house is in one of Napa's earliest neighborhoods. Where might that be?



While enjoying a visit from my brother John Inman and his wife Patti, we walked around this neighborhood. There are some lovely hydrangeas on the same block:



We also had an opportunity to go to the Saturday farmer's market by the Oxbow Public Market:



Our visitors were very impressed with Napa. The farmer's market trip was prompted by a dinner at Grace's Table and a quest for the smoked olive oil used in one of the dishes. It is definitely available at the Saturday market.

plum cake

Today we bottled wine for the Leap of Faith home wine making group. We work now in John and Cyndi's garage (so we can call ourselves "garagistes"). They have hot and cold running water and electricity, things lacking in the old carriage house we used for years. While the carriage house has apple, fig and lemon trees - John and Cyndi's has a plum tree. On the counter were these perfectly ripe plums - asking to be eaten and to be baked in a plum cake. Cyndi asked for the recipe - so here it is. The picture above is a pluot cake from last fall and the pictures below are from today.

"Brunelleschi's Dome" by Ross King is a highly recommended book for those interested in how an enormous Renaissance dome is constructed. John read it before their trip to Italy...



Plum Cake
adapted from a recipe at "Sweet Amandine"

1 C flour
1 tsp. baking powder
Zest of 1 lemon
3/4 C. sugar
2 eggs
1/2 C. canola oil
1 tsp. vanilla
4-5 plums, pluots, or other small stone fruit (or 1-2 C. berries)
1 T. raw sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour 8 or 9 inch springform pan and slice fruit thinly. Mix flour, baking powder, lemon zest - add sugar, eggs, vanilla and oil. Stir till mixture forms a thick batter. Place batter in pan and arrange fruit on top. Sprinkle with raw sugar and bake for 50-60 minutes. Do not over bake - but do remove as soon as cake tester in center comes out clean.

I've made this cake with pluots and with plums - and will see tomorrow how the plum version turned out.

Nocino, or Liqueur de noix

This is a recipe I've been wanting to try since last summer at the Napa Home Winemakers Classic. A bottle of an intriguing brown liquid was brought out from underneath one of the pouring tables, and a small amount of an aromatic liqueur poured into the wine glass. I had never tasted anything like it. On reaching home, I started looking for recipes for "Nocino" and found several, including one for a "liqueur de noix" or "green walnut liqueur" by David Lebovitz, a favorite author and chef.

Unfortunately, this requires green walnuts, and by July the Napa walnuts were too mature to be cut. The shells had already formed. I made a mental note of the date for harvesting the green walnuts - June 24.

I picked the walnuts at my friend Cindy's house this afternoon and bought a 1.75 liter bottle of vodka for this batch. The gallon glass jar is one I use for making Meyer lemon "limoncello" - also an Italian favorite.










Because of the size of the jar, I decided to make one and a half recipes of the green walnut liqueur. A recommendation from several of the recipes is to use a heavy cleaver to cut the walnuts. Tap the cleaver into the side of the green walnut (keep fingers well away) and let the weight of the cleaver slice the walnut in half, then quarters.

I mixed the sugar, lemon and spices with the vodka before adding the walnut quarters.







The walnuts are still green and firm and the shells are forming but still papery. They looked just about right.
























Ingredients:
3 3/4 Cups sugar
1 1/2 Liter vodka
3 sticks cinnamon
15 whole cloves
1 vanilla bean split lengthwise
zests of two Meyer lemons removed using a vegetable peeler

Mix vodka, sugar, spices, and lemon zest in gallon glass jar. Stir till the sugar is dissolved. Add the walnuts. Close jar and let stand on the counter for two months, shaking the jar every day. (For limoncello I put it in the cabinet and shake it every day for 40 days, add the sugar syrup and shake it every day for another 40 days.)

When it's ready to bottle, filter the liqueur through cheesecloth and pour into clean bottles.


























According to David Lebovitz, this liqueur de noix will keep for years in a cool, dry place. It can also be stored in the refrigerator. Supposedly good on vanilla ice cream. We shall see!

Olive Oil Citrus Cake

Several people have asked for the recipe for this citrus-olive oil cake, so I am including it here. It is adapted from a recipe at "Sweet Amandine" - whose author, Jess - adapted it from the cookbook "Rustic Fruit Desserts" by Cory Schreiber and Julie Richardson. A photo of the cake I made is in this post.

At the Napa Rotary Club meeting last week we had a speaker from Round Pond who lead us through an olive oil tasting. The blood orange olive oil reminded me of this cake. The olive oil tasting may be a wonderful alternative for Napa visitors who are not big wine drinkers. We certainly had a great time at Rotary slurping and swallowing some spicy virgin olive oil and the much more delicate and mellow blood orange olive oil. Round Pond also makes a Meyer Lemon olive oil.



1 ¼ c. cake flour
1 t. baking powder
¼ t. salt
3 eggs, at room temperature
1 T. plus ¾ c. sugar, divided
Zest of 1 ruby grapefruit
Zest of 1 blood orange
Zest of 1 Meyer lemon
1 ½ t. vanilla extract
squeeze of lemon juice (optional)
1 c. fruity (not spicy) extra-virgin olive oil

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Using a paper towel, coat a 9 x 2 inch round spring-form baking pan with olive oil, then sprinkle it with the 1 T. of granulated sugar.

Sift the cake flour, baking powder, and salt together twice. Using a handheld mixer or stand mixer with the whisk attachment, beat the eggs, sugar, and zests on high speed for five minutes, until the eggs are thickened and lighter in color. Yes, you need to mix it that long. Add the vanilla and juice, if using. Turn the mixer down to medium-low speed and drizzle the olive oil into the batter, pouring slowly along the edge of the bowl.

Add the dry ingredients, and mix on low speed until just incorporated. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the cake is golden and slightly domed in the center. Cool to room temperature in the pan.

Glaze (optional- I omitted this):

¾ c. powdered sugar
2 T. freshly squeezed grapefruit juice

Sift the sugar into a small bowl. Add the grapefruit juice, and whisk to combine. Pour the glaze over the cooled cake.

Wrapped in plastic, this cake will keep at room temperature for 2 to 3 days. Good luck with that!

Yield: 8-10 servings.

winter tomatoes

In the earliest days of spring, we only dream of summer tomatoes. This coming Saturday we will learn more about local heirloom tomatoes.

This evening I sat down with my son for a dinner of stale bread and canned tomatoes. This sounds rather stark and reminiscent of depression era frugality, but was prompted by a half loaf of stale sourdough bread. There are many recipes in Italy that make use of day old - or week old - bread. The recipe consulted uses fresh tomatoes - unavailable this time of year even here in California, the vegetable basket of the country. A substitution of a 1lb 12oz can of San Marzano tomatoes worked perfectly. I got the idea here at Sweet Amandine, in a post/recipe about the simplest tomato soup. The cookbook I consulted was one of my favorites, Italy: the Beautiful Cookbook.

As we waited for the soup to simmer, we talked of poetry. My son seemed more and more enthused by the aroma of the soup - and when we finally got to eat it, he went for thirds, apologizing for no leftovers. He also took the book of poetry back to his lair to study at his leisure.




Tomato and stale bread soup

3 cloves garlic, diced fine
2 tbsp. fresh sage leaves, finely minced
1 tbsp. fresh oregano, finely minced
3 tbsp. fresh basil, finely minced
1/2 c. olive oil
8 oz. stale bread, sliced
5-6 c. homemade chicken stock
1 lb. 12 oz. can San Marzano tomatoes
1/2 glass red wine
salt and pepper to taste
grated Romano Cheese and minced basil for garnish

Heat olive oil over medium heat, add garlic and herbs and saute till fragrant. Add bread and stir to heat and absorb olive oil. Remove from heat and place bread slices on broiler tray; broil till lightly browned, put back in soup pot. Heat stock in separate pot to add to soup. Place tomatoes in large bowl; use immersion blender to lightly blend, leave plenty of chunks. Add bread and tomatoes to soup pot, raise heat to medium. Add 4 c. heated stock, more if thinner soup is desired. Add 1/2 glass wine, taste for seasoning. Simmer 15-20 minutes. Blend in basil, garnish each bowl with cheese.

My son thinks this would be outstanding with a huge meatball in the middle!

Olive oil

I enjoy several food blogs, including Sweet Amandine by a young woman named Jess who has a way with words as well as recipes. I was intrigued by the recipe in this post entitled "Piece of Cake" since the main ingredients are citrus, eggs, and olive oil. I had just pulled the last blood orange from the tree in the garden, as well as a handful of perfect Meyer lemons. It was a chilly Friday after work, and guests were to come for a late supper. I suggested that since we were going to the fish market, perhaps we could stop at the local grocery for a grapefruit - the only ingredient not on hand for this unusual recipe. At the fish market were lovely pieces of sole for John's perfect sole meuniere.



As promised in the cake recipe, this luscious confection is light as air, a lovely yellow, and has a perfect crumb. Sometimes it is best not to name all the ingredients in the title of a recipe. Who would want to make an olive oil and grapefruit cake? I suspect that the grapefruit and the fruity olive oil are what gives this cake such a distinct "long finish". The flavor lingers long after the cake is gone. We served it with a tiny glass of Sauternes left in the refrigerator from Thanksgiving. I wondered if the wine would hold up from such long cold storage, but it seems to have maintained its special qualities.

I thought of using some of the local (about one mile away) olive oil from a friend's olive grove, but decided to use a very fruity Italian oil since this was a dessert cake.

Ah, chilly winter, candlelight and seasonal fruits!

before the next rain

In the midst of our relentless string of winter storms, this rainbow made a quick appearance. We spent the day last Saturday racking wine at the little ranch on Big Ranch Road (2009's), then at the garage on the eastern side of Napa (2008's). This is a view toward the eastern mountains from Big Ranch Road in the Oak Knoll District. I posted a picture from this series on my facebook page - and seemed to get more response than usual. Those of us living in California are just glad to get a small break in the weather.

Not everyone in the world is on facebook, however - and facebook does not serve all purposes. Missy is way off in Italy, showing pictures of the Tuscan snow, rain on the floor of the Pantheon, and glorious food even in the depths of winter. She does not appear to be a facebook user, and I'm thankful for the more thoughtful and thorough postings about her life in Italy.


John and I each caught swine flu, with just enough time between bouts to make a fresh batch of chicken noodle soup. Soup with lots of the secret cold and flu fighting ingredient - freshly grated ginger. This batch was courtesy of double turkey carcasses from a Thanksgiving of twenty-two guests. I made a huge batch of turkey stock, knowing that the winter could be harsh.

On my first day of high fever, John brought me the last of the winter roses and soup. On a tray. I felt like an ailing Jane Austen. At the time, I barely managed to snap a picture, but knew that this would be the last of the roses till April. We usually have some early ones -- ones as large as dinner plates. These are the hardy, fragrant, persistent ones, a bit brown on the edges, with some yellowing leaves - but fearless flowers all the same.

Jellin'

It is harvest season in Napa. Our wine group, "Leap of Faith" has just pressed out the cabernet sauvignon for 2009. The merlot was pressed about two weeks ago. We brought home several buckets of prime cabernet grapes to make jelly again. Here is the recipe. After getting the first batch made and sealed, I tootled off to sing with the Cinnabar Womens' Chorus. Dear John volunteered to make more jelly in my absence.




The drive to Petaluma is about 45 minutes each way, so rehearsal and commute takes about 4 hours. What greeted me on my return was a counter full of freshly sealed jelly jars, dozens and dozens of them. Such riches of fresh and juicy jelly. There may be many stockings full of yummy ruby lushness this Christmas. Two years ago John made several batches of huckleberry jam - almost all gone now. No longer will we search the pantry for that last jar of jam - the basement larder has been re-stocked.

Bolgia Book Club

At long last my turn to host the Bolgia Book Club rolled around once again. The club is a coed group, 16 strong, comprised of equal numbers of men and women. After a suitable period of time agonizing about my next selection, I finally went with "pleasure" - as in - a pleasure to read, and a narrator recounting the pleasure of discovering her passion in life - Julia Child. The book selection was "My Life in France".

The food was particularly outstanding, as everyone worked to live up to the standards set by Julia herself.



I prepared Boeuf Bourguignon a la Julia Child, and John prepared creme brulee a la John Poole. A salmon mousse appeared, vegetable side dishes, figs and tiny tomatoes from our garden, wines, bread and new Syrah Port from our home winery.





It turns out that several of our members have been professional chefs - working at such famous locations as the Diner in Yountville (now closed) and the French Laundry. Thumbs up all around for "My Life in France" - and a rollicking good time discussing food, passions, life's work, and memories of Julia and how her magnum opus affected our lives. It's the best beef stew in the world, by the way. Highly recommended!

What would Julia do?

Cover of My Life in France

I discovered even before my recent marriage that my husband was an excellent chef. I did not realize the significance of the first meal he cooked for me, though.

That meal was a tour de force featuring sole meuniere and a souffle. I discovered that his batterie de cuisine was extensive, and that he had mastered eggs, butter and puff pastry. His well worn and appropriately spotted cookbook collection included the entire works of - Julia Child.

After marriage my walk partner loaned me a book she was sure my husband would appreciate. It was the Julia Child memoir "My Life in France". The Pasadena connection was only one degree of separation - as his step mother had visited Julia and Paul Child when they lived in Paris.

I read the book also - and thought about it quite a bit. My turn to select the book for the Bolgia Book Club was approaching, and I dithered for two months. What book to choose? History (Andrew Jackson and Thomas Jefferson on the current list), adventure ("Down the Great Unknown" about John Wesley Powell's trip down the Colorado River), something new ("The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao") - or something dear to both our hearts?

Around here the term WWJD now refers to "What Would Julia Do?" -- so the answer was simple after all.

It is coincidental that the new movie "Julie & Julia" opens this week as the book club reads "My Life in France"... or is it? The first meal in France that awakened the senses of Julia Child was a luncheon featuring sole meuniere...